There is no accident that I am using a “Danger sign with skull and cross bones” as it visualises exactly the harm of poisonous words.

I remember being bad mouthed by my children’s mother.   Whether it was directly at them or on the phone in earshot of the children, it’s all the same, it is “Poison”.  I don’t know if she was intentionally trying to drive them away from me but it creates damage and can last forever.  If you handle the situation poorly, you could lose your children’s respect and their affection, in extreme cases, contact with them.  Luckily I didn’t lose contact with them but I lost their affection and I think respect.

Poison comes from justifying hatred and anger.  Regardless of who’s to blame, each person has fault and each person thinks they are right.  Nothing can justify poisoning.

I didn’t know what to do at the time, I had advice from a psychologist to do nothing but be passive about it.  Today I am not sure that was the right advice!  The psychologist said to maintain your calm approach and when they get older they will see that you have not been this “terrible” person their mother makes you out to be or “overheard to be”.  Instead they will see you as their knight in shining armour!  I don’t know that in my situation this was the right approach.

By doing nothing, I believed I was saving my child from further poisoning as I didn’t escalate the issues by arguing with their mother.  It only made me hate her more and I felt helpless.  It was happening to them at such a young age, by the time they were older the damage was done.

My passive approach allowed the relationship to be damaged as I could not balance the poison with kindness, caring or even affection.  I do remember speaking to their mother about how I was not happy that she was poisoning me in front of the children when on the phone or her abrupt response when I picked up or dropped off complimented with doors slamming shut.  In hindsight I should have not discussed how it was upsetting me, as clearly she didn’t care.  Maybe she might have given more of a damn  if she knew it was affecting her children and would have long term implications?

It did wreak havoc at times, our reconnect was slower as there were invisible hurdles we needed to overcome first before we could enjoy our weekend.  The poisoning never really got discussed between me and kids other than I think I mentioned once to not take too much of what your mother says about me as truth however,  they were young and not capable of rationalising things.  I said – It is about how I treat you and you should only take me on how I treat you when we are together and that I have nothing but love for you.  They were very uncomfortable during this chat so it was difficult to continue.

I still maintain today that we should NEVER bad mouth (poison) the children’s mother in front of the kids, regardless of what’s going on.  Today I would have done it differently as I have become more educated in these matters, but it is difficult as you do not want to bring more confusion into their world.

Today I would:

• Document the occasions for possible future litigations
• Confront her privately and ask her to stop the poisonous remarks in front of the kids
• Tell her that her behaviour will not be tolerated ( It probably won’t change much but she will be put on notice)
• Focus on helping the children to understand that their  mum may be feeling angry and upset and although it is not an excuse to say mean things about you,  you will not take it personally
• Tell them it’s ok to love both mum and dad and they don’t need to take sides
• If they are old enough,   suggest that they speak to their mum and tell  her that they do not want to hear these comments and to stop them
• Seek professional advice i.e counselor for next steps if the poison was to continue

An article on this topic was posted on CBS News Website called Divorce Poison and is worth a read.

There are many books written on this subject and below are a few links and I suggest you research the best way forward as we all have slightly different circumstances.

 http://www.complexfamily.com/_blog/C…n_against_you/
http://www.webheights.net/dividedheart/warshak/dp.htm
http://www.brainwashingchildren.com/…/brainwashing/
http://www.warshak.com/divorce-poison/index.html

If your feeling overwhelmed by events, you don’t need to handle it on your own.  Click through to our SOS link and arrange to speak to someone.

Leaving the family home is much harder if it is initiated by your partner.  Interestingly some research conducted in 2003 showed that only 32% of all divorces were initiated  by men.  It makes sense that your partner is probably coping better than you.  This is not to say she is having a better time.  Research shows that before separation the initiator’s stress levels were higher than those of  the non initiator and after separation they reduced and the non initiators increased.

It’s an emotional roller coaster for both parties.  Once the separation is initiated it can spark different emotions such as feeling of guilt, actions can be misread and feelings of anger due to rejection.  The non initiator can feel hopeful and could suggest reuniting and even continue to act as if they are still in a working relationship. Then the feelings can turn to rejection and possible shame.

To avoid mixed messages, Relationships Australia and Mensline Australia recommend that you are clear on exactly where your relationship is at so that you don’t get caught up in confusion.  They suggest that you:

• Restrict contact with your former partner to one call a week, fortnight or month
•  Restrict socialising or going out together
• Limit doing things for them
•  Do not engage in sexual activity with them
• Avoid confrontation

Remind yourself that there is no evidence that your former partner wants to get back with you unless they specifically say so.

This is not to say that separated people can’t get back together.  However, it can take time and usually follows a long period of non-contact.  The emotional bonds created by the original relationship takes a long time to disentangle.

Remember if it’s over it’s over. Hanging on to false hope only prolongs the pain and distress.

Thank you to Relationships Australia and Mensline for their insights.

It was a bit of a shock suddenly having to think about everything!  Many of the family tasks were previously shared such as cooking, gardening, supermarket shopping, planning holidays, weekend entertainment, reading, homework, buying birthday gifts, cleaning bathroom, rooms and carpets and floor, washing, ironing, folding, purchasing clothes, bill paying, making school lunches, clothing alterations, planning calendar, household repairs, driving children to school and friends homes  etc. Phew are you tired yet?

There were many things to take into consideration and I needed to understand what my skill gaps were? For me it was cooking, I knew how to prepare spaghetti bolognaise and chicken stir-fry but we are all too familiar with that saying “who wants chicken every night”. I found taste.com.au became my best friend.  It enables me to search 1000’s of recipes and provides ingredients, method and allows you to create a shopping list, there are easy meals and some more challenging but honestly there is something for everyone.

If you’re at all like me, I found that I was time poor at the end of the day and always rushing around when it came to preparing meals, so I got into cooking a couple of meals, casseroles or soups on Sunday afternoons and then I had a couple of meals during the week that just needed to be warmed up?  Saves a lot of time and left me more time to spend with the kids.  I also found a BBQ cooking course at BBQSchool It was a fun half day and came in handy by giving me an understanding of cooking meat and a variety of vegetables too, we BBQ 2-3 times a week during the summer months.

To keep on top of things I dedicated all my spare time to managing the jobs that needed doing.  A couple of days before the visit I would clean the house, think about meals, go shopping for food and basically just get ready.  It really is like getting for a visit from royalty and I want everything to be right.

Depending on the balance of what was shared , the above could be more or less than what you are normally used to,  it was definitely more than what I was used to.  I remember employing a cleaner for a big clean once a fortnight and had them come the day before the kids arrived, this took away one job and allowed me to concentrate on other things, that became an unnecessary expense and I cancelled them and became good at it myself.  Putting aside dedicated time helped me to get these jobs done,  how have you found balancing all of this, any tips?